I have a few hot pepper and tomato plants in pots on my apartment balcony. Today I went outside to water and on two of the pepper plants were tons of really tiny brown bugs all over the tops of the leaves and some of the flowers....and it looked like some of the leaves had holes in them and they were eating away at some of the flowers that haven't become peppers yet. What are they? I was trying to look online and they could possibly be flea beetles? I tried washing them away with water...any ideas on what I should do or what they are?

Here is a link to flea beetles: http://www1.extension.umn.edu/garden/in ... a-beetles/. I only have black ones in my garden, but all flea beetles are easily identified because they JUMP when you come near, just like real fleas, and their damage looks like shot holes. I think washing any bugs away with a hard spray of water (maybe daily) can help with control.

I've used Neem oil on young potato plants, which get the worst damage in my garden, but most years I just ignore them and plants outgrow damage. But in pots, you may need to do something if water spray doesn't knock them back enough.

_________________Formerly Kaleicious. I still love kale, but no more than lots of other garden greens too! Orach is currently my favorite.

These didn't jump at all and I was able to wipe them away off each plant. They were super tiny and clustered together on top of the leaves. Could it be scale? I don't know much about bugs on plants at all! Thanks :)

Are you sure they're not baby spiders? They all hatch out at once and spread over the tops of plants until they manage to disperse. Scale would tend to collect on stems and leaf undersides... and the same with aphids. If it is a pest, it's probably something you can control pretty easily just by hand or water spray. But it would be too bad to harm them if they are spiders, which eat the bad bugs!

_________________Formerly Kaleicious. I still love kale, but no more than lots of other garden greens too! Orach is currently my favorite.

Hmmm...we do seem to have a lot of spiders and spider webs around! It could be. In which case I would feel bad for killing them since they would eat all the other bugs! It was weird though because the bugs were only on two plants and they were both the same variety of hot pepper plant...I'm not sure why. And there were a few holes in the leaves. But maybe it wasn't from them?

Hmmm...we do seem to have a lot of spiders and spider webs around! It could be. In which case I would feel bad for killing them since they would eat all the other bugs! It was weird though because the bugs were only on two plants and they were both the same variety of hot pepper plant...I'm not sure why. And there were a few holes in the leaves. But maybe it wasn't from them?

It sounds like whatever you have is too small to be responsible for the holes, so assume spiders. If they're still there in a couple of days, reconsider. I unknowingly did wipe out some beneficials when I started gardening, so I usually take a 'wait and see' attitude now.

_________________Formerly Kaleicious. I still love kale, but no more than lots of other garden greens too! Orach is currently my favorite.

I didn't want to make a new thread so I'm hanging out here to post a pic of a *good* bug I found in my garden today! It's a native hover fly and it eats pollen. The larva eat aphids, so I hope she has some babies! Unfortunately I don't have a macro lens so this is as high res as I could get. Those red eyes are beautiful!

ooh the native hover flies and native bees are so awesome. i've just started learning about the non-honeybee bees we have here and they're so cool. One kind exclusively eats nectar from aloe flowers, another makes the weirdest, trippiest honeycombs (they look like little pods like the floaties you see on seaweed?) that they attach to the trunk of a particular tree.

Wow, torque! I will have to google bees of Brazil! Do you see them in your garden at all? We are planting lots of flowering native california plants in hopes of attracting them. So far, nothing, but I hope that will change in the spring. I'm a little worried they won't bother to check out a second floor balcony, but you never know.

i think a second floor balcony is not out of the question. after all they go up high in trees, so why not?i just saw the aloe bees yesterday, one was desperately trying to get into my mouth as i was drinking my coffee yesterday morning. we see soooo many different ones. many build their nests in holes, so if you have a wall with exposed block holes or things like that, they are attracted. many people also cultivate bees by hanging out PET bottles, since they like to build their nests there.

We had Jataís in our yard in one house, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetragonisca_angustulaand I went to a farm where I saw nests of Jandairas (scroll down through this page here, on the RIGHT side you will see the weird honey setups I was talking about) http://meliponariodosertao.blogspot.com ... irais.htmland I think my aloe flower bees are a type of these http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trigona_spinipes except ours are pure black. they are very calm and sweet. we have sooo many different types. i don't often have things in flower in the garden (my garden is mostly leafy plants), but when the passionfruit or the mulberry are flowering it's like a circus out there. so many buzzing and flying things! and my yard is a tiny urban yard-- yet we have lots of tiny urban yards so there is a lot of animal diversity where we are, even in the city.

We got bugs! On fb I posted a pic of a spittlebug in its foam on my yarrow plant. Also a bunch of bees! Looks like I wont have to hand pollinate my fruit trees :)

In sadder news, I've got thrips decimating my herbs. Anyone have some tips? I applied the predatory nematode solution I use to control fungus gnats to the soil, hoping it also works on thrip larvae. Otherwise, I got nothin'. Major bummer.

I've read thrips often drop to the ground when they pupate so your nematodes may help. Other common biological controls are various predatory mites, minute pirate bugs (orius spp.) and generalist predators like lacewings and ladybugs.

Soap and oil sprays will knock back numbers but for better control look into products containing spinosad, it's pretty effective and derived from a soil bacteria so it's safer than more hardcore insecticides. Hope that helps, good luck!